Sunny Side Up Nutrition

A cooking, nutrition and family feeding blog to simplify your life

Elizabeth

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts – Our Holiday Tradition

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Just before Thanksgiving, Anna and I shared some of our family holiday traditions. These Brussels sprouts are part of our Thanksgiving AND Christmas meal traditions. The process of removing the cores and seperating the leaves takes awhile. But it’s well worth it! And Chad and I enjoy the time together. Sometimes people help with the process and sometimes it’s just us. Either way, we enjoy making this dish.

If you’d prefer not to core and leaf the Brussels sprouts, you can simply feed them through your food processor using the shredder attachment. It’s not the exact same dish, but still works well and tastes great! Either way you decide to prepare them, cook them until they are bright green and some of them just being to brown.

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Sauteed Brussels Sprouts

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport
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Description

Even Brussels sprout naysayers will like these tender, sauteed Brussels.

Ingredients

2 bags (or 1 branch) of Brussels sprouts

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Cut the end off the Brussels sprouts.  Then, using a sharp paring knife, carefully carve out the core.  Once you’ve cored all the Brussels sprouts you can begin separating the leaves into a large bowl.  (You can do this a day or two ahead and cover the bowl and leave it in the refrigerator until ready to saute them).

Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a large saute pan and heat over medium-high heat.  Add the Brussels sprout leaves and salt and pepper to taste.  Saute for about 10 minutes.  Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.  Serve hot or at room temperature.

Our Favorite Cookbooks – The 4th and Final Gift Guide in Our Series

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Gift Guides

I don’t know about you, but I love gift guides.  They give me new ideas and they’re just fun to read.   We’re on a gift list roll right now!  This is our 4th and final gift list in our series.  Click these links to read the previous guides if you missed them or want to revisit them: 13 Favorite Kitchen Essentials That Make Great Gifts, Nutrition and Body Books for Parents and Kids and 7 Nutrition and Body Books for Adults.  We hope ours have helped you find some great gifts for loved ones or for yourself.

Cookbook Love

Anyone who has been to my house has seen my shelves of cookbooks (and there are even more on shelves in the basement). I absolutely love cookbooks! I read them like novels. There’s always a stack next to my bed sitting amidst the other books I’m reading. A babysitter gave me my first cookbook when I was 9 or 10. I still have it! Our Favorite Cookbooks

You can always learn something new when you open up a cookbook. A great cookbook will teach you to cook with easy to follow instructions and a reasonable number of easy to find ingredients. (There are great cookbooks that teach challenging techniques that include recipes with lots of ingredients, but that’s not what this guide is about). A cookbook can also offer a trip to new parts of the world, history lessons, and even some science. Cookbooks offer opportunities for creativity – combining taste, texture, and colors in new or different ways. In great cookbooks, each author’s writing style and the photography or drawings also pull you in. Wonderful cookbooks will make you feel inspired and empowered to cook.

Our Current Favorite Cookbooks

For this post, I decided to stick with just a few recommendations for cookbooks that make cooking accessible. I’ve also included a few that delve into cooking that’s not quite as simple, but fun for anyone who enjoys cooking. It was hard to narrow them down!

Cookbooks for the New or Experienced Cook

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

 Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat

This book is the first on the list, because it’s my current favorite.  I love everything about this book!  The first half of the book is divided into 4 sections that correspond to the 4 words of the title. You’ll learn how each element works and how to use them in your cooking. The illustrations are more intricate than those you find in most cookbooks. In “How to Use This Book,” Nosrat writes that the choice to use illustrations instead of photos is to prevent you from feeling like there’s only one way for a dish to look.  If you’re interested in food and the science of cooking and want to learn the essential elements, get this book!   Most of the recipes are easy to follow with just a few ingredients.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch the Netflix episodes, (you can watch the trailer here) make sure you put this at the top of your list.  This 4 part series warms my heart.  I know that might seem hard to believe, but it’s such a pleasure to watch.  

Our Favorite Cookbooks - 4th and Final Gift GuideHow to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

This is one of Anna and her husband, Dan’s, go-to cookbooks. Anna loves the book because everything is explained in a straightforward way. The recipes are simple and have just a few ingredients. Dan likes the book because the recipes don’t require buying unusual ingredients that are only used once and then end up sitting in the refrigerator for ages.  

Our Favorite Cookbooks - 4th and Final Gift Guide in Our SeriesHow to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

I love this book because it’s filled with easy to follow techniques and a ton of ideas for vegetarian meals.  Throughout the book, Bittman provides lists like “39 Vegetable and Legume Dishes That Can be Tossed with Pasta” and “39 Dishes That Can Be Stir-Fried with Asian Noodles” and the page numbers where you can find these easy recipes. These are just 2 of the many useful lists that direct you to recipes throughout the book. If you want to own only one cookbook about basic vegetarian cooking you can’t go wrong with this one. …

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13 Favorite Kitchen Essentials That Make Great Gifts

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We hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Did you have a chance to read our post about self care during the holidays?  If not, here’s a link to it. We share our tips for taking care of yourself during the holidays.

The holidays are officially ON. The fun has begun! Over the coming weeks, we’ll share links to some of our favorite kitchen essentials, books on building healthy relationships with food, and our favorite cookbooks.

Kitchen Essentials

I love kitchen gadgets.  These are some of our favorites.  Many of these items were actually given to me as gifts over the years, so I can attest they make great gifts!

The links in this post link to items at Amazon.com.  We are members of the Amazon Affiliate program which means we receive payment from Amazon when our readers purchase items from links in this post.

Stainless Steel Cookie Spatula

I love this stainless steel cookie spatula. It’s great for baking. And it’s great for young kids to use because it’s easy for small hands to manage.

Ceramic Paring Knife

While I was at my mom’s over Thanksgiving, I used her ceramic paring knife.  I loved it! I don’t have one, but I’m definitely asking for one. The benefits of ceramic: it’s light, it retains its sharp edge and it’s stainless.

 Kitchen Shears

I use them for so many tasks. They’re great for making peeling shrimp easier, cutting herbs, opening bags and boxes of food – like those beans that come in boxes? I can’t open those without scissors despite the perforrated top!

Microplane Grater/Zester

I’m not sure what I used before I owned this!  I have two of these. One I use for grating parmesan cheese and the other I use for zesting citrus peel.

Oxo Y Vegetable Peeler 

This peeler rocks! It is by far the best peeler I’ve owned. You want this in your kitchen!  You can even peel butternut squash with it.

Flat Whisk

A friend gave me this many years ago and it’s one of my most used utensils.  It can reach the bottom edges of pans, so when you’re cooking and whisking (like making mac and cheese) bits don’t get stuck in the pan. …

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Thanksgiving Traditions and Dessert-Part 2

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A North Carolina or a Pennsylvania Thanksgiving

Elizabeth here.  Our family of 4 (me, Chad, Caroline and Ellie) has always traveled to either North Carolina or Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. My parents are in NC. My sister lives in Georgia and often makes the trip to NC when we’re there.  Sometimes we spend Thanksgiving Day with my mom and stepfather and some years we spend the day with my dad, stepmother, half brother and extended family. Some years friends and other family join us for dinner and some years not.  We also try to make time to see friends when in NC, too. It’s always a whirlwind, but I love seeing everyone!

When we travel to Pennsylvania, we spend the holiday weekend with Chad’s parents, his brothers, their wives and their children. Then the day after Thanksgiving, Chad’s Uncle, Aunt and 5 cousins and their spouses and children come spend the day with us. It’s a big crowd, but lots of fun.

Family, Gratitude and Games

Our tradition is being with family.  Part of our tradition is to take a few minutes to go around the table and give each person a chance to tell everyone what they’re grateful for. I love this tradition and I especially love hearing what all the children have to say.  

As a child, I always loved watching the Macy’s Day Parade!  I still do and both my children enjoy it now, too! After our meal, we often play some sort of game: Apples to Apples, Taboo, Head’s Up.  For us it’s a fun way for everyone to connect.

Thanksgiving Sides

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Keep it Simple! 3 Quick and Easy Meals

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I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week! I love this time of year. We’re looking forward to getting together with family and friends as always. However, life gets so busy during this season. There’s shopping for gifts, parties, activities, travel and holiday shows – It’s all so much fun, but it can all feel overwhelming if I don’t take the time to plan and keep meals simple. We don’t want to eat out most nights, which is what happens if I try to wing it. Plus, making dinners allows for leftovers for at least a couple of lunches each week.  

At the end of the day, as Anna highlighted in her most recent post what you eat for dinner isn’t what’s most important.  It’s the meaningful time you spend connecting with your family.  

Here are 3 quick and easy meal ideas you can rely on through the holiday season. I’m also going to use Anna’s printable meal planning template (sign up at the top of our blog to receive it) along with a couple of other go-to meals I wrote about last spring to simplify meals.  

Sausage (vegetarian or meat) with sweet potato fries and sautéed brussel sprouts

30 minute meal

I tend to buy this Neiman Ranch Sweet Italian Sausage. All four of us really like it. If it’s a vegetarian option you’re after, the Field and Stream sausages are quite good.  Shaved or shredded Brussels sprouts are a favorite in our house.  Everyone loves them, there’s no prep work and they cook in less than 10 minutes!  When I can’t find shredded Brussels sprouts, I buy them whole and run them through my food processor with the grater blade.  If I know I don’t have time for that extra step, I’ll cook a frozen vegetable I have on hand.

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Lentil Salad with Feta Cheese and Salami

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Easy Lentil Salad

HI. Elizabeth, here.  It’s been so warm and humid here in the DC area, it’s hard to believe it’s mid-October.  I love fall and am looking forward to some cool, crisp days like today.

This Lentil Salad with Feta Cheese and Salami is just the recipe for still-warm fall days. It’s also hearty enough for cool days.   As I mentioned in a recent post, these Trader Joe’s Steamed Lentils are one of my favorites.  You can typically find them in the refrigerator case on a top shelf above the vegetables.   In our house, we use them either cold in a salad like the one below or heated and served with rice and some grated cheese.  My friend, Amanda adds caramelized onions and rice to them.

This recipe is so easy!  It really only takes a few minutes to make.  I love to have it for lunch on mixed greens. It also makes a nice side dish.  This salad is one of those items my kids still haven’t tried, but I keep offering it. If you have toddlers, preschoolers or even young elementary age kids, you might offer this salad deconstructed.  They’re likely to be more receptive to the individual ingredients.  And remember, even if your child doesn’t try a food after seeing it many times-don’t give up.  They might just try it eventually.  When they do, you’ll want to jump up and down and cheer, but resist the urge.  As hard as it is not to cheer, remaining neutral creates a low pressure environment for trying new foods.

Lentil Salad with Feta Cheese and Salami

Easy Lentil Salad…

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What’s For Lunch?

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Elizabeth, here.  I hope you had a chance to read Anna’s recent post about the importance of eliminating diet talk from schools. And did you see our new resource to share with teachers and coaches?  It makes it so easy to reach out and share your beliefs about food with anyone who works with your children.

Has everyone settled into the new school year?  If you’re anything like me, it’s the time of year you get stuck in the lunch-making-ho-hums.  I don’t love packing lunches and get tired of it pretty quickly!  As a way to prevent the ho-hums and mix things up a bit, I thought I’d share a few more ideas for quick and easy lunches to add to the LUNCH LIST.  

What’s For Lunch?

Leftover Pizza, Clementines and Homemade Oatmeal Craisin Cookies

Lunch Leftover Pizza, oatmeal cookies, clemintines

A teenager or older child would likely need at least two slices of pizza depending on the slice size.  (These are actually quite small. I had to cut this piece of pizza in two to fit it in the container).  Or add a Greek yogurt or some trail mix to lunch if there’s only one slice per older child.  For younger children, make a hole in the top of the clementines to make it easy for littler hands to peel them, or just peel them before putting them in the lunchbox.  

Leftover Pizza, oatmeal cookies and clementines

I love these Sistema lunch cubes as I mentioned here a few weeks ago.  They have plenty of room for a full lunch.  And the fact that the container closes between sections means less likelyhood the pizza or cookies will taste like clementines and vice versa.

Sistema Container

My youngest loves leftover pizza for lunch!  This makes me happy because it’s so easy and it really satisfies her.  …

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Our Favorite Lunch Packing Supplies

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Hi!  Elizabeth here with a quick post about our favorite lunch packing supplies.  We wanted to share these to make packing lunches a little easier for you, too.  And as I mentioned recently, I enjoy seeing everyone’s back-to-school photos and I said I’d share mine.  Here they are!  The pictures are separate because one of my daughters (14) went back to school last week and my other daughter (11) went back to school this week. 

First day of school

Back to schoolBack to school

 

 

Our favorite lunch packing supplies

Since school is back for everyone now, many of you are likely back to packing lunches.  Last week I posted 3 quick, easy, back to school lunches   Here are the lunch packing essentials that work best for us. They’re good sizes.  They aren’t too hard to open – very important for younger children especially.  And they don’t leak!

A 10 oz size Thermos works well for to keep food warm or cold for younger children. And a 16 oz size works well for food for older children.  

 

A 12 oz cold beverage container works well for younger children and a 16 oz size works well for older children.

 

Plastic and glass containers

This Sistema container holds a sandwich and still has plenty of room for other lunch items like cookies, fruit and some chips.

Favorite lunch containers

I use these long narrow Rubbermaid lunch containers for items like slices of cheese, grapes, 1/2 an avocado, apples, carrot sticks, crackers and small cookies. The larger, square containers are great for sandwiches. The ice blocks are handy for keeping items cool. I admittedly don’t use the ice blocks very often.

I really like these glass Pyrex storage containers.  They’re useful for packing lunch and storing leftovers.  I tend to use the small rectangular containers for foods like fruit or chips, or avocado. The larger square containers I use for for salads. I like the larger ones for reheating lunches Chad and I take to work. The small round containers are good for smaller sides like nuts, nut butters, and dried fruits.

My 14 year old told me this evening that the containers I’ve been using for dressing actually leak!  And I thought all this time they didn’t.  Oops!  Caroline and Ellie empty their lunch boxes and rinse out the containers when they get home (with a few reminders).  I guess that’s why I didn’t know about the leaks.  I’m going to give these Sistema dressing containers a try.   Do you have salad dressing containers you’d recommend?

Baggies, straws and utensils

I remember when these reusable baggies first came out.  They were a big hit!  I will admit, I do use plastic baggies sometimes.  There are times when the reusable baggies are all dirty or there’s a field trip and we’re asked to send lunch in disposable containers.

 

We use paper straws since they’re biodegradable.  We also have reusable straws in some of our cold drink containers.

For reusable utensils, I use some old stainless steel flat ware from Ikea, but these Seitsema utensils work well too.

The lunch box

And finally, a good lunch box or bag  to pack everything in is a must.  I really like neoprene lunch bags because they stretch.  It makes packing lunch easier.  You won’t have to worry whether or not we have the right size containers.

]Favorite lunch packing suppliesFavorite lunch packing supplies

What are your favorite lunch packing essentials?  Stay tuned for more quick and easy lunch ideas coming soon!

*This post contains affiliate links.

3 Favorite, Easy Back to School Lunches

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I love seeing all the back to school pictures this time of year!  (I’ll post a back to school picture once both kids have gone back to school.)  I can’t even believe it, but our 14 year old started high school on Monday.  Naturally, I’ve been thinking about what to pack for school lunches.  I settle into making the same lunches pretty often. I’ve definitely done that this summer.  So, I thought I’d start the school year off with some lunch ideas to share over the coming weeks. Hopefully, these will also be helpful to you and your family!  In the midst of all this meal planning, don’t forget to think about meals and snacks for yourself, too. 

Lunch, like all other meals and snacks doesn’t need to be perfect! There’s so much pressure to feed ourselves and our kids in some perfect way. At my house, the containers we use don’t match and I sometimes use plastic baggies. And my kids will eagerly tell you I’ve been known to forget to put things in their lunch bags, like utensils or even food. At some point last year, I got a text from Caroline during the day with a picture of the empty Thermos I put in her bag.  I forgot to add the food!  

3 Easy Lunches

One of the easiest lunches for me to pull together is lentils, rice and grated cheese.  I love these Trader Joe’s Steamed Lentils!   You can heat them or serve them cold (recipe for a lentil salad coming soon). All you need is some extra rice, or buy precooked, frozen rice to mix with the lentils and a little salt. I heat the Thermos by filling it with boiling water from our electric water kettle.  You can also use hot water from the tap. Screw the lid on the thermos and let it sit while you make lunch. Heat the mixture for 1-2 minutes on high in a microwave safe dish. The time will vary depending on your microwave. Remove it from the microwave and stir in about a 1/4 c grated cheese. Empty the hot water from the thermos and add the heated lentils, rice and cheese.

Easy back to school lunches…

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Our Annual Corn Fest – Another Family Tradition

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Summer Corn

Elizabeth here.  Anna’s most recent post suggests low pressure ways to introduce children to foods.  One of those is cooking with children.  Our family’s Annual Corn Fest provides just such an opportunity.  It’s another family tradition and an opportunity to gather multiple generations.  And it’s also FUN!  

What a Job!

I won’t forget the time my father-in-law told us about one of his jobs as a child growing up in Eastern North Carolina.   Because he was always so tall, he had a job walking through the rows of corn and opening the pods (anthers is the actual term) on top of the stalks to distribute the pollen they contain. Who knew there was ever such a job?!  And a little plant biology – the pollen fertilizes the silks. There has to be a fertilized corn silk for each kernel of corn to develop on the cob. Fascinating! …

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